HN downplays all jobs other than programming to a horrible degree.

"Why do we even need hr?"

"Why do we even need managers?"

"Why do we even need sales?"

I've seen it all on this site. It's pretty disrespectful to those professions especially when hr is on the front lines when hiring slows and layoffs take place. The talk of outsourcing in particular is amusing since HN will talk endlessly about how outsourcing programming can't possibly work.

Gross. If this is how you think, maybe DEI is needed for more than just legal cover.

It sucks that you've dealt with bad recruiters and bad HR. I hope you get to work with really good ones someday, because it can be incredible.

One of the best things a former employer did was hire an in-house recruiter who was actually good at the job. Because he wasn't working on commission, he cared a lot more about getting the right person for your team rather than just a butt in a seat. He had enough technical background to talk intelligently about the position when I was interviewing to work there, and a year later when I ended up writing a job description, he was able to do a very good job walking me through how and why each part was there. Recruiting is really hard to do well, and lots of companies do it really poorly. But it can be done well, and it's a real pleasure to work with a good recruiter both as a candidate and a hiring manager.

HR as well, to a point. Yeah, it's to protect the company and control costs. But it can be done well or poorly, and when it's done well it can be reasonably pleasant to deal with.

You sound like you’ve never worked in recruiting or spoken closely with someone who has.

I would not go that far.. they do serve a purpose. That said, I only interact that group about application/benefits/exit interview and the application part is almost uniformly bad in corporate world ( I effectively avoid applying blindly; I was mostly lucky that most of my recent jobs were referrals that bypassed HR screening ).